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This week is the Forestry Education Auction. If you’not familiar with this let me explain. Each year, at the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference Forestry Education Dinner and Auction, Mary A Livingston (my lovely bride) and I contribute two paintings to go on the auction block. There are many items being auctioned, but what’s different about our contribution is we go head to head in a husband vs wife bidding war! Only, we aren’t the ones bidding. What could possibly go wrong. The winning bidder gets to pick the painting they want and the other goes back on the block. The bidders don’t know which painting the other bidders are bidding on! It’s great entertainment, at least to Mary and me. I reblogged her entry on my previous post. I must say that I’m intrigued because there is a mystery behind her painting.

Bull of the Woods

This painting is in rememberence and is a tribute to Jim Headrick. He was a fourth generation logger, Logger of Year, a true professional and an all around good man. He is missed. Cheers Jim!

This fire season in California has been epic in the worst possible way. Not only did we have the state’s largest recorded wildfire, the Ranch Fire, but we’ve had the most destructive fire, the Camp Fire. During any prior year the Carr fire would have been the most destructive fire in California, but this year has been exceptionally bad for wildfires.

I was out checking in on one of our salvage logging contractors on the Carr Fire last week. The timber salvage operations are well under way. Click on the gallery of images to read about it.

This view is from the Highland Ridge Road looking down at the Community of French Gulch. Over the course of a couple weeks the fire made a run at the town three separate times. Many homes were destroyed.

The Carr Fire left hundreds of millions of board feet of dead timber in it’s wake.

It’s like a ghost forest.

Bark beetles immediately invaded the fire killed trees. In the spring they will spread the many of the surviving trees.

This is one of many of our salvage loggers. It is imperative to get the wood to the mills as fast as we can. It begins to deteriorate as soon as it’s dead. The tractor is skidding trees to the processor,. The processor cuts the trees into logs, while the loader sorts the logs into decks.

Here the processor manufactures trees into logs.

A couple of big logs waiting to be skidded into the landing.

On steeper ground we use track laying skid cats to move the trees to the landing. The land around Redding that burned is very steep.

The logs get sorted by size and species while waiting to be delivered to the mill.

The trees don’t always burn completely during the fire, but the heat alone is enough to kill them.

This part of the forest had been thinned before the fire. By spacing out the remaining trees the fire burned at a lower intensity. The fire wasn’t as hot, the flames were smaller, and the remaining trees were resilient enough to survive the fire. Thinning these trees in a logging operation saved them.

Even now, weeks after the fire was contained there are still hot spots out in the burn. We may still find some hot spots in the spring.

Since I wrote this post the rains began in earnest. Our fire season has come to brutal end.

I was out in the Carr Fire burn area today. It’s quite devastating to see the thousands of burned acres of forest. This fire destroyed over 1600 structures, but it also killed millions of trees. We are faced with an epic fire salvage operation that will take years to complete. That will be followed by an equally epic reforestation program

With all the fires burning in California there has been a lot of discussion about logging to reduce forest fuel. Doing so makes our forests more fire resilient. There is fear among many people that logging of any kind will destroy our forest. The truth is the the fires are destroying our forests. This is a short video of such a logging operation from last year on the Lassen National Forest. The Forest Service prepared this project. Our company bought and logged the timber sale. The result is a healthier more resilient forest.

This story appeared on KREM2 in Spokane. I’m heartened to see a support for an active strategy to deal with the wildfire dilemma. In defiance of popular conventional wisdom that harvesting trees is a bad thing. Finally, using harvesting as a tool for healthier forests. It too long overdue in the minds of the public.

This crew is getting ready to start shipping logs. The loader hasn’t arrived yet. The skidding crew is getting trees to the processor. The processor is making logs so there will be enough to load the trucks first thing in the morning. I don’t usually get a shot of the processor working by itself without the loader parked beside it.

The Sierra Cascade Logging Conference is all over, but for the clean up. The Forestry Education Fund Auction was last night and it was a booming success. The final result of the entire fund-raiser was north of $100,000. Now if you’ve been following our blogs, you know that Mary (Sneaking Bliss) and I provide original art, which is bid in a competitive way. Both pieces of art are on the auction block together. The winning bidder gets to pick the painting of their choice and then bidding begins anew on the second place painting.

Here’s how things went down. Our paintings were items 18 and 19. This is a great place to be on the schedule, the early middle. There were fifty items to auction. Everyone was still there with plenty of money left for bidding. When our turn came they asked us to come up front and say a few words, but this auctioneer was a total pro. I didn’t have a chance to needle Mary with my witty comments when the auctioneer jumped right in and was talking so fast I could hardly keep up. The first bid opened at $1,000. This was a great start! Within seconds it shot up over $4,000. As it went above $5,000 things really got serious. A new bidder jumped in and one bidder got out. Then another dropped out and it looked like we had reached the end. Suddenly, the last bidder to drop out decide he wasn’t done and the bidding took off again. As it shot up to $7,000 then $8,000 I leaned behind the auctioneer and looked at Mary and she look at me with “what is happening here” looks on our faces. The auctioneer finally yelled “SOLD” and the bidding was done. One of our paintings just sold for $10,000! I was floored.

Now the moment of truth. The winner came up to claim his prize. We waited to see which painting it would be. Do you think he agonized over which painting to choose? Heck no! He beelined straight to Mary’s painting and snatched it off the display like he was rescuing a baby from a fire. Mary’s painting brought in $10,000 in support of forestry education! It was an amazing moment.

At this point my painting was back into the bidding and the auctioneer began searching for a new price. Long story short it fetched $5,000. Don’t get me wrong, this was a fantastic price. Higher than I’d seen before, but … she crushed me! Mary absolutely annihilated me! Together our art brought in $15,000. We were thrilled at its success and what it meant for the education fund.

The Fellers, the loser painting…

Tonight I’m going to relax, lick my wounds and have a toast with my favorite competitor. Tomorrow will be soon enough to start thinking about redemption for next year. Congratulations Mary, you are an amazing artist!